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Smith claims that he came up with the basic concept for the QCast Tuner after going through the Ars Technica A/V forum, looking for information that would help him with a WiFi media server project that he was working on at the time.? Eric Smith, who's QCast's inventor and the CTO of BroadQ, is an active Ars OpenForum member and the QCast Tuner has its roots here at Ars.
#Qcast review full#
Advertisementīut before I go on to talk about QCast, BroadQ and the emerging home networked media space, in the interest of full disclosure I should point something out: C. This would allow any room with a ~$200 PS2 and networking connectivity (wireless or wired) to enjoy the kind of multimedia content that's traditionally tied to a single PC.
#Qcast review software#
By utilizing the networking kit available for the PlayStation 2, BroadQ's QCast Tuner PS2 software can deliver digital media over a LAN from a PC to a networked Playstation2. And if you want to access any of that content from a room with no PC-like the living room, for instance-then your options are quite limited.Īll of this could soon change, however, if BroadQ and other companies in the emerging networked media player space have their way. Unless someone in the house is proficient enough with Windows to set up file-sharing and map drives, MP3s and movies that are downloaded on one computer aren't readily accessible to a machine across the hall, a situation which creates little islands of content playable in only one room. Many homes do in fact have multiple PCs-one or more PC for the parents and one for the school-age children-but their utility as interconnected entertainment conduits lags far behind that of the TV in terms of price and ease of use.
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Though the price of a low-end PC has dropped through the floor in recent years, these PCs, especially when combined with a Microsoft OS, are still far too expensive to be as ubiquitous in the home as the television. Most of these TVs are also?equipped with VCRs, so that movies and other entertainment can be enjoyed in almost every room in the house.
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Many homes now have a cable-connected TV in every bedroom and common room, and some even have a TV in the kitchen. In the past two decades, one of the most noticeable shifts in the landscape of the American home has been the spread of the television set from the living room into every room in the house. Sony PlayStation2 console, Sony PS2 Ethernet Adapter, PS2 memory card, Pentium II 300 MHz computer with 64Meg RAM, 20MB+ of free hard drive space, Linux, OS X, or Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP and Internet connectivity.?
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